Recent Game Reviews

It took me a while to get off the ground and actually get the hang of it for some reason O_o

The first building I built was actually the highest, 1100 meters or so if I remember correctly (almost to the top of the sky). Which is funny, because it was a complete asymetrical mass of metal.

My building always crashes prematurely when I try to actually build something that is symmetrical and actually looks like a small building, such as when I just stack the pylons "boxes" ( |X| <-- looks like this) on top of each other. Just if there's one small tilt or quick in my structure, it crashes completely. Also, its pretty funny when you stack a bunch of these on each other, remove a few essential pylons from the bottom of the tower and watch it all come crashing down.

I tried building outward, so there were two vertical rows (columns?) of those boxes stacked next to each other. This worked a bit better, as my base was a complete mass of metal, which worked out for a more sturdier tower, so I could build with the top part of my power while tilting and not having to worry about it crashing. This was the most hilarious crash, I was literally lol'ing watching all the pylons crash to the floor. I don't think there's many games were you can actually enjoy losing.

Another tower I built filled my screen outwards wise. Before I even had to scroll up, I probably had like 200 pylons just stacking connecting to each other. I got a game over without my tower even crashing though, it reach like 600 meters, and it was very sturdy, only steadily tilting to the right and left.

Another cool thing to do is stack 3 or 4 "boxes" on each other, and the on top of those place a pylon facing upwards and as it falls down, try to connect another pylon on top of this piece, and before it hits the ground connect it to another sturdier piece on the tower. This is pretty fun, I had a good streak going until one of the pylons viciously snapped off and I lost.

Music is pretty nice too, relaxing, atmospheric, guitars are crisp and deep, fits the mood quite well. Maybe some ambience would be nice too along with it, like some traffic sounds in the backgrounds, a light jackhammer or construction sounds, a plane flying by every now and then. Is that a digitech pedal youre using for the FX?

As for criticism, nothing really wrong with the game itself, well there is one thing. Not sure if anyone's pointed this out already. When I have a lot of joints in the same area, and I'm trying to maximize the size of a pylon, it automatically toggles to the nearest pylon instead before I can even reach max length. So if there was a way (or am I missing something?) to stay locked onto one pylon, by like holding down the ctrl key that would be great. Also, if you were to expand this, it would be nice to start with three or maybe four pylons to start with and work with. scrolling left and right would be a nice option too, as there were several times when I was building outwards and my tower went off the screen, and I wasn't able to connect to these pylons that were out of the boundaries.

All in all, kickass game, and I appreciate that you take the time for responding to reviews, unlike the vast majority of flash authors. I usually don't bother typing up a review if I know the author is not going to respond. Keep up the good work!!

Thanks for such an in-depth review. I'm sorry I took so long to get to it, but I've been getting quite a few more reviews than I expected - not one to back down on a promise, though!

The basic building style was never really supposed to be the best. I definitely wanted people to exercise their imaginations a bit to find the best tower. Building outwards is certainly more fun, anyway.

I'm glad you enjoyed the music - great to hear it from another muso (judging by your name). Some ambience is actually probably a good idea. I want to have a shot at dynamic ambience in the sequel - wind increasing as you go up, the tower creaking, etc. I just have to be careful not to overdo it, because flash is -extremely- slow, no matter how well you optimise. I wish I could afford a digitech pedal xD Amplitube is used for the effects, amps and post-processing, with a well-extended REAPER trial used to mix. I desperately need a higher quality recording rig, so I can get rid of the noise on the more useful amps and really clean things up a bit.

The pylon joining problem is well known and oft lamented. None of my testers complained, which I've had to yell at them repeatedly for. I'll use some kind of system for keeping a bolt selected in the sequel.

Left and right scrolling is planned. A multilayer background of that magnitude is a fair bit of work to produce (shoutout to Krystal <3), and building a bigger one would be even more difficult, of course. Also, things tend to slow down when huge images are used in flash (though I tried to cache everything imaginable). Different amounts of foundations are under consideration, too.

So yeah, once again, thanks for the deep review. I'm glad you enjoyed the game, and I hope I haven't taken -too- long in replying :P

great concept, nice music, and pretty fun game. graphics could be better, but that just seems difficult, i dont know how flash artists do it lol. Anyway pretty sweet! just one thing, i got stuck on level when I trapped my ogotu so he was bouncing off a block and the wall LOL! is there a reset key/button that i'm missing?

Recent Audio Reviews

I don't know how I'm going to be able to follow up a review from KB but I'd agree what he says.

Solid ideas here, decent melodies, good flow, but the structure itself feels a bit unimaginative and generic (although, I don't how you could improve this much while still retaining the danceyish feel)

Like KB said, the sounds feel a bit dated, I *believe* they are all pretty much raw sytrus presets (but thanks for not using the Eurotrance preset lol, and I did like the leads and pads, theyre just overused)- definetly the drums could use some work, work on layering different samples together, mess with compression on EQ until you can get a nice original sound. Surf the web for different types of samples, I think I had a link to a general samplekit posted on my third blog. As for the synths, start making your own from scratch, just basic ones from the start with 3xosc, and mess with tweaking the sytrus sounds.

as for the mixing- not my area of expertise but for a song like this it doesnt feel like it has enough reverb, to really spark that danceing inside a club type of feel. Maybe put some on the lead to make it stick out a bit more. this could also use a spruce of EQing to really carve out the sounds more to maximize the clarity and make the mix less flat, but I dont have any specific tips on how to do so.

as far as the composition goes, the only thing I would do differently is add more to the part after the second melody theme comes in, keep the pads in the background, maybe make the drums sound a bit more intense by laying the clap with a snare and maybe switching the closed hi hats with an open every now and then.

Lastly missing effects? i'd say include some more drastic automations perhaps- somewhat like in the intro mess with automating the filter frequencies, resonance, and EQ bands, just experiment around with them see how different levels mesh with each other.

Good job man, keep the music coming. keep these melodies saved and once you get more experience you'll be able to make this into a NG classic haha. i know some of this advice was pretty vague but if you have specific questions feel free to ask.

I know what youn mean about the structure, I forgot to include in my description that this isn't the completed structure but rather the completed melody structure, if that makes any sense?

The sytrus isn't preset and has about 4 effects on them, however... not enough change in my opinion... its a complicated story but the short of it, is that they should have been changed before I uploaded the song. So i'm completely agree with you on that. - Though I admit I'm a noob in FL and rely too heavily on messing with sytrus and have 0 experience in 3xosc... and will be starting to learn about that wonderful thing.

Adding even more reverb on the main synth was genius... why didn't i think of that. Thanks.

Thanks for the tips, thanks for the links.

I will absolutely keep making music. By the time I have actually figured how to make instruments sound good I think I'll have a library of my own music to remake.

lol, I read the kind review you left KaiserSzandor. Try to give some advice in addition to bashing/flaunting your superior knowledge to the average newgrounder that you take everyone as. Maybe then you would actually EARN your high horse that your prize yourself riding on so often, for now you're still just an elitiist, pedantic, condescending fuck ;)

as for the track itself, very damn interesting. Some awesome ideas in here- jazz and DnB has got to be one of the most unique blend of styles IMO.

Really like the drum beat going on, still has a DnB drum beat feel while adding the odd time signature complexity, while not feeling too awkward. Like what you did with the ride-crash cymbal throughout, how the rhythm is similar to the ghost notes you would hear in an amen break, and how those hi hat/snare sounding hybrid thingies rhythm were sequenced, not being just boring straight eights. some of the buildup sounds were pretty intresting to hear as well.

-The thing that definetly sounds like a snare- sounds a bit weak, maybe layer it with a snare with a good decay and add a minor amount of reverb

-Oh goodness, I didn't like the saxaphone one bit. Both the melody (personal taste? or my I haven't aquired these advanced tastes yet) and the overall sound. I thought the small, lengthy pitch bends (natural element of the soundfont) that used seldomly were overly long, making the melopdy feel real awkward in the background. I know or think of jazz resolves around a lot of dissonance, but given the calm, smooth atmosphere (of the two chords that your presented first) I would like if you toned down the dissonance a bit. Way too many clangers in here for my personal taste (the latter half wasnt too bad). The note at 5:09ish killed it for me, as the previous notes sounded like you were going to roll into smooth, and then broke it. As for the sound, I just hate the timbres of alto saxophones. some of the high register notes were on the verge of ear piercing. Maybe it would be an interesting contrast to include some tenor saxaphone, after all it is a 7+ minute song.

-Work some ambience throughout the piece in a subtle manner, just some random sound FX and small intricate snippets that may help with the repetion and make the general progression more interesting

-Not a big deal since its DnB, but maybe work a distinguishable melodic theme somewhere during the section with the pads, as this mostly sounds like you were jamming in an improv session and just looped a few spliced breakbeat patterns throughout and two chords for the drop section.

-speaking of which- the bassline. I dont care, but since you pride yourself on avoiding simplicity, maybe spice up your bassline more both in a rhytmic and melodic sense, considering it was the same two sustained notes throughout.

Good song and sorry for being late to review, but here's my two cents. Definetly some awesome ideas and very easy to roll with. Though your knowledge is probably far superior than mine, and probably most everyone here.

wow, this is real game right here. Intense stuff right here. I can hear some sonic the hedgehog influences in the melody.

the 5/4 beat makes it sound really damn interesting (its that extra snare hit) i started writing something in 6/4 last night, but that doesnt count as odd right?

Synths made in sytrus? That detuned saw at the beginning was sick, real nice evil gritty sound. Love the ambient sound, some great FX and background elements that really makes the flow of the song a pleasure to listen to, plus a great thing to add into DnB. melodies and riffs were intense man great job.

I really dig the breakdown at 1:04, mmm, that melody is real nice, excellent preface to an intense bit, the beat was damn tight. in this section I would maybe add some strings that crescendo to really add to the intensity.

Great job with automating the drums in the end dude, the last beat was real nice the cutoff boots and cuts flow nicely.

mmm also loops well.

Few things:

Maybe to make the breaks more concise and powerful, layer the kick and snare with a sample and compress them. (I can hear them fine, but its something to consider)

clarity was a bit of a problem- the saw and the synth that carries the melody have this fuzz going throughout the entire track, it personally gets a bit annoying when used so much. I honestly dont know how to fix this, maybe experiment with a low pass filter to remove some of the fuzzing in parts. (modulating the bass filters would make for some sweeeet swells and whatnot too) maybe a more precise shape might help the case which can be remedied by turning down the "skew" and "sine shaper" controls.

the second half might be able to use a sharp, clear lead synth that plays long sustained notes.

The mix, the drums, two things I'm working hard to overcome. I've started remaking one of my pieces from a little while ago (Carbon Baby pt 1), and everything's coming together brilliantly and it's sounding amazing.
I've noticed the little extra effort going into effects and atmosphere can make a world of difference to a track, I just need to keep making music, and keep practicing and brushing up on those things.
Again, thanks for putting all this time and effort into this review, I appreciate it a lot.